The gates at the base of the viewing box yawned open with a guttural, bone-shaking grind, iron teeth gnashing against stone like a predator's jaws. Dust plumed up in choking clouds, swirling in the blood-hot sun that beats down on the arena like a hammer on an anvil.
Four titans lumbered out, each one a colossus—eleven feet of rippling sinew and scarred hide, armored in leather etched with runes that pulse faint crimson, bronze plates hammered to fit like second skins. They strided across the sand, footprints sinking deep, kicking up grit that stings like ground glass.
The air reeked of sweat-soaked leather, oiled metal, and the metallic tang of spilled blood.
The crowd exproded into a thunderous roar that rattles the bones, vibrations crawling under skin like burrowing parasites. Not rage—ecstasy. Pure, primal worship.
"BOY FROM BEYOND!"
"THE GIANT-SLAYER!"
"GLORY! GLORY TO THE WARRIOR!"
Flowers cascded from the stands in an blinding storm—petals the size of a man's palm, crimson and gold, slamming into the sand like fleshy raindrops, bursting with pollen that clogs the throat.
Coins ping and clatter, gold glinting wickedly in the light, jewelry arcing like shrapnel. Silk scarves flutter down, silkier than any mortal weave, tangling in the growing carpet of offerings. Giants, barbarians with a hard-on for underdogs.
"HE FIGHTS WITH HONOR!"
"STRENGTH CALLS TO STRENGTH!"
"THE GODS FAVOR HIM!"
He perched on the unconscious gladiator's back like a broken vulture, her massive chest heaving under hi bottom in ragged, defeated breaths. Blood seeped from hi wounds, warm and sticky, pooling in the creases of his armor.
His good arm trembled, muscles screaming from the strain of that last, desperate strike. 'Honor? I cheese-gratered her knee with a sword and prayed she didn't squash me like a bug. That's not honor—that's dumb luck and panic.'
These giants... they revered the raw grind. Primal as a gut punch. Not idiots, not monsters—just wired for the visceral truth of power. Courage in the face of oblivion. He'd scraped by on terror-fueled instinct, a trust-fund fuckwit from a soft world, dodging death for—what, forty minutes?
An hour? Time sometimes blurs in the haze of pain and sand.
"UNIQUE! THE MORTAL IS UNIQUE!"
"POWERS FROM BEYOND!"
"A WARRIOR WORTHY OF SONG!"
'Unique? Yeah, uniquely fucked. If they knew I was winging it on sheer spite... Dread coils in my gut like a serpent, cold and slimy, whispering that this adoration could flip to slaughter if I slip.'
The guards closed in, shadows swallowing him whole. One—a scarred giantess, face a roadmap of old battles, arms thicker than his torso—snatched his good shoulder in a vise grip. Fingers like iron cables dig in, hauling him up with mechanical efficiency.
Not cruel. Not kind.
Just inevitable, like gravity claiming a corpse. Pain lances through his frame, vision blurring with black spots, but he dangle there, limp and spent, the arena's roar fading to a distant, mocking echo.
"Ow! Hey, wounded here—fucking ease up, you overgrown vice!"
The giantess didn't even blink, her scarred paw clamping around Pete's torso like a living shackle, fingers engulfing ribs that screamed in protest, grinding bone on bone.
She yanked him off the gladiator's sweat-slick back with the casual flick of lifting a mangy alley cat, his boots kicking uselessly eight feet above the blood-soaked sand. Air rushed past his face, hot and gritty, carrying the stench of iron and crushed petals.
"The mistress wants to see you," her voice rumbled out, flat as hammered bronze, no inflection, no mercy—just orders etched in stone. "You come now."
"Yeah, I got that impression, you sadistic boulder," Pete snarled through clenched teeth, every jolt sending fresh fire lancing through his guts.
Blood wept from gashes in his thigh, pattering down in thick, viscous drops that splattered the arena floor like accusations, soaking into the petal carpet turning it a deeper crimson.
The colosseum quaked under the crowd's frenzy, a living beast stomping in savage unison—thud, thud, THUD—vibrations crawling up the guards' legs, rattling Pete's teeth like dice in a killer's fist.
'They're chanting for the pint-sized freak who just scraped a win. Glory? I'll take a morphine drip and a one-way ticket home, you oversized fanboys.'
"BOY FROM BEYOND! BOY FROM BEYOND! BOY FROM BEYOND!"
The four titans boxed him in—two ahead like battering rams, two behind as unbreakable walls—marching in lockstep, their strides devouring the sand in gulps that swung Pete like a pendulum of meat. He dangled their, dwarfed, a flea in a storm of muscle and armor, the world a blur of towering legs and roaring faces.
Giants everywhere, nine feet the runt of the litter, their shadows swallowing him whole. Tiny. Pathetic. A goddamn action figure in a world built for gods.
"BOY FROM BEYOND!"
"GLORY TO THE WARRIOR!"
"MAY THE GODS SMILE UPON YOU!"
The guards ignored it all—the floral hail bruising his skin, coins ricocheting off bronze like hail on tin, silks snagging on armor spikes. Obedience trumped adulation; her word was the axe that fell, no questions, no applause.
Servants swarmed the pit below, ant-like, dragging the fallen gladiator's limp bulk, scooping his massive sword like toy debris.
'Champion one heartbeat, forgotten cargo the next. Story of my fucking life—crash, collect rarities, now this bullshit.'
Bitter acid bubbled in Pete's throat, cursing the semi that pulped him, the forbidden tome that yanked him here, whatever cosmic joke scripted this nightmare. But underneath the rage, a treacherous warmth blomed—gratitude, sharp as a hidden blade, twisting in his chest.
'All the trust-fund glitter—Porsches purring in garages, penthouses dripping excess, shelves groaning under erotic grimoires that'd make a priest weep. Worthless. Dust.'
He'd beheld Persephone unveiled, divine flesh etchd in fire across his mind—curves that mocked marble statues, perfection no mortal eye was meant to devour. And the giantess in the fray?
His palms still ghosted the memory of her breasts, heavy, warm, yielding under desperate fingers—titans' forbidden fruit, squeezed in the chaos of survival.
'Money buys pages, not pulses. Lifestyles? Hollow shells next to clawing life from death's jaws, toppling a colossus with spit and spite. I've crammed a lifetime into an hour of hell—thank you, you merciless universe, for the terror that tastes like triumph.'
The staircase loomed, carved into the colosseum's gut—steps like cliffs, three feet of sheer rise for giant boots.
They asceded without falter, Pete jostled in the lead guard's grip, world tilting past screaming commons, merchant perches reeking of spice and coin, elite rows lounging in shadowed opulence.
Up. Up. Into the rarefied air of silk banners snapping in hot wind, bronze poles gleaming. Cushioned thrones sprawled like lazy predators, tables heaped with glistening fruits, wine dark as blood in crystal that could drown a man.
At the pinnaco, on her dais commanding the carnage below, she waited—the summoner, finger crooked like fate's hook.
Closer now, she was a storm made flesh, towering even seated, presence crushing the air from Pete's lungs. Dread and that twisted thanks churned in his belly, a venomous brew.
'Her game, her rules. Let's see if this cargo survives the unpacking.'
Thirteen feet of confidence and authority. Her purple robes flowed around her like liquid shadow, the heavy silk catching the arena's light and releasing it in subtle, hypnotic waves. It clung to her in places, hinting at the powerful physique beneath, and draped in others, conjuring mysteries that Pete's exhausted, pain-addled brain desperately wanted to solve.
His gaze, against his will, was dragged up her form. Her shoulders were broad and strong, the sharp line of her collarbones peeking from the neckline of her robe, dusted with gold that glittered like a promise. They were the shoulders of a commander, a queen—a body built to wear power as comfortably as skin.